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Living Territories 2018 Conference | Making local populations central to the development of their territory

20/02/2018 - Article

VIDEO. Organised at the initiative of CIRAD and its partners, the international conference Living Territories 2018, held from 22 to 24 January 2018, brought together more than 280 researchers, key players in territorial development, the private sector, donors and policymakers from more than 35 countries. At a time when almost half of all people still live in rural areas, territorial development relies on the capacity of all actors to take the changes they experience at the local level to the international level. It also relies on the capacity of territories, through their vitality, to propose new modes of governance, connecting the local, national and international levels and thereby helping to address the challenges of sustainable development. Faced with environmental and climate change, population growth and heavy pressure on resources, CIRAD and its partners believe this is the only path guaranteeing responses that are adapted to needs.A look at the key messages of the conference.

Trusting in the vitality of rural territories to build the world of the future

As soon as we contrast changes underway and the challenges of sustainable development, cities attract our attention. Indeed, more than half of all people now live in urban areas and, according to UN projections, two thirds of the world population will be living in cities by 2050. But this is to forget that the other half is rural, and that this population is continuing to grow in many countries. It is to deny the fact that urban and rural areas are not two separate worlds, but are linked by intense mobility and structural relations. It is to overlook the importance of the challenges associated everywhere with job creation, and it is to forget that there can be no peaceful cities without a prosperous countryside.But these rural territories are very much alive. Despite the proclaimed inevitability of rural depopulation and the concentration of agricultural production in just a few breadbaskets, it is clear that rural areas are changing and innovating. And this is true in all countries and regions, including those in crisis.

An area where new forms of governance are being invented

The rural territories are areas where new forms of governance are being invented. They are areas that provide economic, social and environmental services that are essential to social cohesion. There are many examples of technical and organisational innovations. We need only think about the popularity of local products, from Roquefort cheese, the first AOC (French geographical indication) in 1925, to the promotion of Vales da Uva Goethe wine, produced in southern Brazil. But the territories are also important when organising agricultural production, managing and guaranteeing the renewal of scarce land, water, pastoral or forestry resources, and enhancing landscapes. Tunisia, for example, is establishing multi-partner territorial charters to organise the common management of water and soil resources at the level of living spaces, associating local actors and national, regional and local institutions. In the Brazilian Amazon, public and private actors from the municipality of Paragominas have proposed a territorial pact aimed at halting deforestation and adopting environmentally friendly agricultural practices. In the space of two years, federal sanctions against the municipality have been suspended and this success story has inspired the Municipios Verdes programme, which has been extended to the whole of the state of Pará.The world of the future can therefore be invented at the territorial level, through the strengthening of democratic institutions and the development of coordination and regulation processes.

The role of research

Over and above its technological contribution, research produces data and tools to better understand, accompany and evaluate in order to support decision-making processes. Action research accompanies the dynamics that begin in the territories, using for example the power of maps and datasets to demonstrate the complexity of the world and its territories, but also to compare actors’ viewpoints. It adopts foresight approaches to produce new perspectives and to inform the policies to be implemented.